Tech worker on sick leave for 15 years sues after missing out on pay rise
A tech worker for IBM who has been on sick leave for 15 years sued his employer because he missed out on a pay rise.
Ian Clifford, who earns an annual salary of $A101,221, claimed the tech giant treated him unfairly because of his disability.
However, an employment tribunal did not agree – finding IBM treated him favourably reports The Sun.
Tech worker on sick leave for 15 years
Mr Clifford has been on sick leave since 2008, while continuing to earn his generous salary.
Under a lucrative IBM health plan, the IT specialist is guaranteed to receive $A101,221 a year until he is 65.
In total, he will earn $A2.82 million.
Despite this, Mr Clifford accused IBM of disability discrimination because it refused to give him a pay rise.
He said his salary is “not generous enough”, claiming that it will “wither” over time due to inflation.
Not the first time
It’s not the first time Mr Clifford has complained about his sick leave pay.
In 2013, he also complained about missing out on a pay rise and holiday pay for the five-year period he’d been off work.
To settle that matter, IBM agreed to put Mr Clifford on the company’s disability plan.
Under the plan, a person who is unable to work is not dismissed, but remains an employee.
However, they have “no obligation to work”.
The plan allows for the worker to be paid 75 percent of their salary until they recover, retire, or die if earlier.
In Mr Clifford’s case, his full salary was £72,037 ($A135,207) – meaning from 2013 he received £54,028 ($A101,413) per year after the 25 percent deduction.
IBM also paid him £8,685 ($A16,301) to settle his holiday pay complaints in 2013.
New complaint
Despite the generosity of the plan, Mr Clifford took IBM to an employment tribunal in early 2022 with his new disability discrimination claim.
He argued that the company treated him “unfavourably” with no salary increase since or holiday pay since 2013.
Mr Clifford told the tribunal with inflation currently over 10 percent the “value of the payments would soon wither”.
“The point of the plan was to give security to employees not able to work – that was not achieved if payments were for ever frozen,” he told the tribunal.
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Not disability discrimination
Meanwhile, employment Judge Paul Housego dismissed his case.
“That active employees may get pay rises, but inactive employees do not, is a difference, but is not, in my judgement, a detriment caused by something arising from disability,” he said.
“The claim is that the absence of increase in salary is disability discrimination because it is less favourable treatment than afforded those not disabled.
“This contention is not sustainable because only the disabled can benefit from the plan.
“It is not disability discrimination that the Plan is not even more generous.”
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